The contest is officially closed! M will be picking the Top Three Essays today, voting will begin at 1pm tomorrow and continue until 9pm on Wednesday (times are Central). Great Gran will draw a name from the hat on Wednesday night and winners will be announced on Thursday. Now: To the Knitting!

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single square.

I think I may start calling it the Epic CounterPain. Just for fun.

Know what the best part is? I still haven’t got the pattern right! Nothing serious, just whether or not to start with a knit or a purl on some of the rows and I had added an entire extra line of pattern for no reason. Laura has been helping me sort out my Pattern Issues and making squares of her own! She is going for a more Sensible Option and making a baby afghan with her squares. She’s also opening an etsy shop with some of her hand-dyed sock yarn (and other goodies)! I am very happy that she managed to get it all together before the Sock Yarn Addict Club begins. Tonni has also been working on squares (March 16). She has made some adaptations of her own and they look great! Tonni lives in Alabama too, which provides me with segway:

With the appearance of Darlene’s blog (she is working on her very first article of clothing!), the total of Alabama knitbloggers that I know of has hit 5. I think this means we need a button.

Please copy this to your own server! Stealing bandwidth is mean.

This is not a ring! In fact, at the moment, it is not even a group. It’s just a button. But if you take it, please email me and I will see about putting together a list of Alabama Knitters for link purposes.

Here is the best part! Are you ready? Look what I’m learning to do:

I made yarn! Twisty, chunky yarn, but I made it!

That is a Turkish Drop Spindle that I got from Teyani at Crown Mountain Farms. Teyani fixed up the spindle and wristaff with some practice roving and got it started before she mailed it to me. Then, she managed to teach me how to use it through email and over the phone (she rocks)! This is one of the most fun things I have ever tried! The next time I have it apart, I will show you all the parts and pieces – the design is really clever and the spindle itself is beautiful (cocobolo rosewood). My starter fiber is Corriedale Pencil Roving in Tibetan Dreams (Teyani does the dyeing, oh, the Talent!). It comes as a fluffy yarn pillow:

I didn’t want to open it because it was so pretty.

I can totally understand why there are folks out there with giant stashes of unspun fiber. Darling Sister, visit soon so I can show you how to do this! You will love it.